


Only the Moon Looks Down

by shakespearespaz



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Dark Character, Gen, Internal Monologue, One Shot, Past Torture, Rape, Rape Aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:52:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The faces she passed there were all the same; even Aaron was one of them, although he could never admit it. Everyone would simply take what they wanted—her secrets, her body, her freedom—if they could. </p>
<p>It was the truth that lay rotten beneath every human shell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only the Moon Looks Down

If Rachel brought her leg down at the right angle, she could barely make out the sensation of the capsule below her knee. It was dull and uncomfortable, and it persisted, obtrusive like a pebble in a shoe, if she thought about it.

There was not much else to think about. Or else, there was too much.

Had Danny been able to feel the tiny object in his chest? Did he think it was normal, that all other children had the same awkward ache?

He would never know the price his parents paid for his brief life.

Rachel gulped at a crinkling plastic bottle. Tears shed were water wasted now.

The Blackout deaths were easy to distance herself from. She had been so much younger, so naïve and stupid. That person was not her anymore, could never be, and she accepted the ruined world as a lost cause, like she had for a decade.

She had spent too many years tied to a chair, biting her tongue and lip and tongue again until they bled, all so that she would not scream, would not give them the satisfaction of her pain, although every touch burned like fire. There had been too many chunks of hair ripped out, too many purple and blue and yellow and green bruises fading slowly, too many scars and memories torn open again and again, too many faces blurring into nightmares through her tears.

When she had finally cried out hoarsely and collapsed exhausted at her tormentor’s feet, it was enough.

Her own blood had swirled down the drain alongside the innocents she’d slaughtered.

It had been easier when she was with Charlie and Miles. Easier to cling to reality, to hope, to a future.

But with them it was also harder; she had to fight the numbness that lingered behind every difficult breath.

Out in the plains, with no friends and only the clear sky and brown grass, things were simpler. The world was too large for her to fix, so there was no need to. Morality was a speck of dust she crushed beneath her boot with satisfaction each time they stumbled into the next town.

The faces she passed there were all the same; even Aaron was one of them, although he could never admit it. Everyone would simply take what they wanted—her secrets, her body, her freedom—if they could.

It was the truth that lay rotten beneath every human shell.

She had doubted it the first time.

Then, Miles had crawled to her bedside to gently wash the angry welts across her back. He had inflicted them himself only hours before. He kissed her tears away, but his hands drifted down, beyond her waist. She did not say no, but she did not say yes either.

He pulled their sticky bodies together after he had squirmed in satisfaction above her, whispering that she could trust him.

She should have seen it then.

Her doubts had only withered further with Bass. After serving up the lie about her life to Miles, he had made his first nightly visit to her damp cell. If nothing had been holding back Miles, Miles had been the only thing holding back Bass. He forced her bare back against the cold concrete and pinned weak, struggling arms.

Goodness is dead screamed the sensation of him inside her.

In some joke of fate, Strausser was the only one to give more than he took.

He had stolen bits of her skin, it was true, but she learned how to mimic his essence. He taught her how to be polite, to be patient; she figured out the subtle game of smiles and threats and plans. In the darkest moments, instead of focusing on the pointless act of withholding tears, she mapped his hands across her body. It would take practice, but one day she would be able to leave her own marks with such skill and dexterity.

The apprentice never leaves the master alive, though, and Rachel passed with flying colors as she drove the blade through blood and bone and tissue with a crunch of satisfaction.

Her hatred for him consumed every fiber of her being, but in such filthy loathing she planted the seeds of revenge.

Strausser had given her tools to avenge the life smothered beneath the heel of those she trusted. Amplified with the power of power, she would fulfill the desire that licked her lips raw with anticipation each day.

The cool, dry nights were her favorite, though.

Heat and moisture made her want to heave. It was everything she hated—Philadelphia summers, Miles’ mouth on hers, fresh blood and sweat and stickiness between her legs.

But when the stars punctured the sky above her in the open landscape, she was anonymous, insignificant. She was free. The cold points of light could care less about humanity and inhumanity.

What was the death of two-thirds of mankind compared to the universe immeasurable?

After she killed Monroe, riddled him with bullets, slit his throat, suffocated him, left him to dogs, she wanted to return to that instant.

If she laid in peace in the stiff grass for eternity, perhaps she too could drift upward on the breeze in release. Across her one last scar would erupt, tearing her consciousness free from her shattered shell to join the stars.

It was moments like those when everything threatened to fall.

All it would take, however, was the rude morning sun to bring her back. The intrusive rays forced her to turn her eyes again to the depravity and desperation across the wasted nation.

If the rest of the world had lost their inhibitions, so had she.

There was blood on her hands already, her son’s blood, dripping thick and warm and wet into the dusty earth. It would hardly matter if she stained them further.

She used Danny’s innocent face to enrage herself against Monroe. It did not always succeed in bringing about the desired effect.

More often than not she excused Aaron’s company to relieve herself.

She wandered away to privacy, where her knees knocked forward to collide brutally with the ground. Dry, gasping sobs shook and twisted her stomach and her features knotted into an agony that would never be relieved.

Hands masked her face, her grief whimpering quiet and low.

She wanted no one to see—no one to see that hatred stitched to hope was all that held her together.


End file.
